Odd Sets – 1977 Topps Mexican Football

In 1977 the Topps Chewing Gum Company wanted to go where football (American style) has never been before. They issued a Mexican set and it was a spectacular failure! The set itself was printed and manufactured south of the boarder. Here is a peak at the mess of a pack:

This was a near mint pack!?!? Kind of makes me wonder that a poor condition pack would look like. You can read all about this wacky set here. I just want to go over the highlights here. First off isn’t this just a handful of awesome?

For all you Acereros fans!

The set had 528 cards just like it’s American counterpart.

The cards were packed either two or four to a pack and 36 packs in a box.

The included gum was either banana or grape.

The four card packs are worth more than the two cards packs because there are usually three unstained cards.

The two card pack usually has one wax stained card and one gum stained card.

The collation of the cards were brutal, you didn’t just get doubles in boxes, you got 17s. Doubles in packs were the norm and not uncommon at all.

There are twelve cards that are considered “The Dirty Dozen”, they are as follows:

# 8 Rick Volk – Giants

# 21 Lawrence Gaines – Lions

# 89 John McDaniel – Bengals

# 98 Ray Rhodes – Giants

#231 Eddie Brown – Redskins

#269 Archie Griffin – Bengals

#276 Wilbur Jackson – 49ers

#404 Ray Jarvis – Lions

#434 Eric Torkelson – Packers

#444 Mike Pruitt – Browns

#488 Rich Sowells – Jets

#528 Super Bowl

These cards go for ridiculous amounts of bucks on eBay just look at some of these sold values:

I really got into these for a while, about six years ago. I have a Ray Rhodes dirty dozen in VG, and a bunch of other stars and commons. I even have an unopened wax box of this stuff.

Funny thing too is the scan you show of the unopened pack. Even PSA makes mistakes. That’s not Terry Bradshaw on the wrapper; it’s Steve Bartkowski of the Falcons. I would suggest to the owner that they send it back for relabeling.

Speaking of grading for these, I suggest sending them to BGS rather then PSA. BGS seems to be a little more generous when it comes to the existence of the perforations and gum/candy/wax stains. I once traded a BGS 7 no-stain Staubach to a Cowboys fan for almost $400 in Morgan silver dollars.

Every now and then I’ve seen these cards go for big bucks, or at least the bidding wars. I’ve been lusting both of the Walter Payton cards in the set for years, but once one goes up on eBay, forget it, the hawks come out and go to war. If anyone has either of the Mexican Payton versions for trade, let me know, otherwise those cards could fall into the dirty dozen category of impossible to find.

I collect these cards. I love the fact it is a huge challenge to attempt to complete a set. Lots of cards that are very hard to find, even more difficult to find in NrMt due to numerous printing issues from our friends in Mexico.